Day 4 Navigator:
Today we woke up as we pulled into Puerto Vallarta:
We had booked the shore excursion to Las Caletas, which met up in Studio Sea at 7:30AM. While Mike got the kids dressed, I ran up to Beach Blanket Buffet and grabbed a few little boxes of cereal and a couple of tubs of milk, so that we'd have a little something to snack on.
Port adventure ticket stub (they retain a piece of it):
We got to Studio Sea a few minutes early, got Goofy stickers to identify us, and went to eat our cereal at one of the tables. We were told that you need to be extremely careful about what you take into Mexico... someone had been fined for the dairy in the glaze on a doughnut, for example. Pre-packaged shelf-type food (like the little cereal boxes) or bottled water are OK, as long as they remain sealed. A short time later, they called our group and we were off. It was a short walk down the edge of the port to the little boat that would take us to Las Caletas, which was moored right behind the Wonder. This is a great opportunity to get some close-up pictures of the boat, and to see some of the little details you don't get to enjoy when you're onboard!
Brochure with info about the day (sorry, my scanner wasn't big enough to get it all, but I tried for the most important stuff... the prices for the optional activities (the lighter blue section) got cut off, but I'll post them below:
Massages: $25-50
Certified diving (pre-book): $15
Clay modeling: $6
Power snorkel: $35
We were toward the end of the line, so we went up top and crammed ourselves in. They gave everyone, including the children, adult-size life jackets, telling us that they would give us kid-size ones at some point. That never seemed to happen, though. The boat ride out took maybe 45 minutes and I mostly spent it in line downstairs signing Elliott up for the "kid adventure" activity, which he was really excited about. The crew walked around with pastries and coffee, though I didn't get any; by the time I was through the line, the pastries were gone. We could hear entertainment, but it was downstairs so we didn't see it. However, as the boat pulled up to the dock at Las Caletas, a parrot was released and circled the boat for quite some time. The people downstairs might not even have realized this was happening, but we had a great view.
Las Caletas was absolutely beautiful, lush green rain forest as the backdrop for small white crescents of beach. Once off the boat, everyone stops to have their picture taken with a costumed man and woman before moving down paths lined by alcoves filled with tables and chairs, where we were told we'd be eating later. We went down to the largest beach area and claimed some chairs for ourselves.
We paid our first visit to the bathrooms. The signs threw me off, because I could see bathrooms at the top of a second set of stairs, but the sign indicated that they were to the left. I went upstairs, but later found that there was another set down there. I believe the first level restrooms had one for men and one for women. The upstairs set had two for each. They were nicer than I'd expected them to be!
The only bummer about the whole day was that when we were on the boat they told us there would be street-style tacos (one of my very favorite foods) available for us once we got onshore, but we never saw them. We also never saw anyone eating one, so who knows!
The kids wanted to play in the water, so we all headed down to splash in the surf. Jason got a set of snorkel gear (which just required an ID or room key as collateral), and I wish I could have done it! I just never ended up with time. He said he saw a lot of fish, particularly by the raft that is anchored in the middle of the roped-off swimming area. Other options that were available were kayaks, stand-up paddle boards, and inner tubes. For a fee you could SCUBA.
The water was pretty chilly, but it was what we expected in winter, and the weather was gorgeous (low 80s) so you adjusted to it quickly. They did mention that wetsuits were available if you found the water too cold.
It was quickly time for Elliott's kid adventure, so he and Mike headed off for that, while I stayed with Oliver by the water. He had an amazing time and Mike told me just that was worth the cost of the excursion. Each child was given safety gear, including a sturdy helmet:
They were then seated for a talk about what they were going to be doing and information on the rules and safety.
The first stop was the monkey cage. The kids were taken inside and had to keep their hands knit together, against their chests. The monkeys got to climb on the kids (which Elliott thought was totally cool).
Next, the kids rode donkeys (led by their parents) to the next station.
Where they walked across a swaying bridge:
The staging area for the zip-line portion of the activity. These kids had SUCH A GOOD TIME!
After that they met back up with us at the beach. Mike and Jason took the boys back down to the water to play, while Meghan and I relaxed for a while in our beach chairs. A few minutes later, the guys were calling and wildly gesticulating, so I ran down to see what they wanted. It turned out there was a whale a short distance out who was putting on quite a show! I've seen whales in the wild before, but never anything like this. For ten or fifteen minutes he just pulled out all the stops, doing every whale trick you can think of, over and over. It was incredible, and I wouldn't have been surprised to learn that there was a trainer out there or something. Of course, I didn't have the camera in my hands. I tried to get it on video, but every time I thought my recording was getting too long without any action and stopped it, wham, he'd leap from the water in a spectacular breach, before I was able to hit record again. I haven't watched my video yet, but I'm pretty sure there's not much to see.